NEC Corp declared over the weekend its intention to retreat from the PC market in the Asia-Pacific region and concentrate solely on domestic sales in Japan, following the firm’s decision to quit the computer biz in EMEA last month.

The ailing tech vendor warned it would report a net loss of 290bn yen ($2.96bn) for its fiscal year, which ends tomorrow (31 March).

In January NEC, which is the biggest PC maker in Japan, said it would axe 20,000 employees worldwide after it was forced to revise down its forecasts after posting bruising third quarter results.

Last month the vendor confessed it was pulling out of the cut-throat notebook and PC business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa due to a big fall in demand.

NEC sold its European retail computer biz – Packard Bell – to eMachines co-founder Lap Shun Hui for an undisclosed sum in 2006. A year later Acer gobbled up the brand after it acquired Packard Bell’s parent company Gateway.

Since then NEC has struggled to compete for sales outside of Japan against the likes of Acer, HP and Dell, in what has become an increasingly squeezed marketplace.

Just last week the Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo, in a similar strategic move to NEC, confirmed it was effectively retreating from EMEA by splitting its business units in two, as it scrambles for more sales at home and in emerging markets. ®